The Bird Tree

Retail stores have made it all too clear that Christmas is on its way, and all the reminders of twinkly lights, shiny ornaments, festive music, and seasonal coffee creamers (anyone else addicted to Peppermint Mocha creamer?) have begun to put me in the Christmas mood. And this year, I've put alot of thought into our Christmas tree. Realizing that we may very well have a walking 10-month-old when we decide to put the tree up changes the dynamics a little. Do we get a small tree and put it on top of something he cannot reach? Do we go for broke and put the tree up as usual and spend many white-knuckle moments as he tries to knock it down, swallow ornaments, gnaw through cords, and climb its branches? Do we put up a tree but only decorate the top? And then there's the cats to think of....

Its in all this thinking that has made me realize how important a Christmas tree has always been to me. Most of my memories of my childhood holidays revolve around the O'Tannenbaum - picking it, bringing it home, decorating it, even getting rid of it. Although this post could be pages of my memories, I thought I would highlight a few for posterity's sake.
-Driving past the vacant lot on 11th Street the other day, I was reminded of the place where we used to pick out trees when I was little. As a child, it appeared to me as a dimly-lit city lot with rows upon rows of trees. We always went at night, after my dad got home from work, and there was snow on the ground and the yellowy street lights made it exciting for a girl of only 5 or 6. I remember the trees were usually of such poor quality (they were only $10-15 each) that my mom would always try her hardest to find one that wasn't spray-painted and that looked as natural as possible. Now as I drive by, the latent memories of my childhood flood back - it really is a large garage with used tables, hubcaps, baby strollers, and miscellaneous, not-even-flea-market-worthy items, but it still has the Christmas tree lot on the side, where you can purchase a tree for $19.95. Inflation, I guess. But call me Charlie Brown if you must, those $10 trees were the highlight of my Christmases, and they always looked beautiful.
-Decorating my Gram's Christmas tree was my first introduction to Christmas music. She would turn on her Reader's Digest compilation of Christmas music, and we'd sing with Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, and Dolly Parton as we delicately placed 40-year-old ornaments on her tree. As a 9-10 year-old, I remember chastising her for having an artificial tree; it was a big, bright, unnatural green, with wire limbs so rigid they would not bend and bristles that hurt when they poked your hand as you tried to hang an ornament in an unused crevice. But when we finished it off with tinsel made from real lead that she had preserved for decades, it was a grand spectacle of a tree. Each branch held up memories of her family - ornaments she had bought or received when each of her 5 children were born, ornaments given at her wedding, garlands her grandchildren had made for her. It was not so much a Christmas tree as it was a family tree. When we'd finish, we would decorate Christmas cookies, lick fingers' full of frosting, and compile plates of Gram's special cookies into trays for all of her family and friends.
-Greg and I had moved away for college, and although we were going home for Christmas, it didn't feel right to spend the whole month of December "treeless". He lived in a basement apartment in Ely, Minnesota at the time, and so one weekend when I was up to visit, we snuck into the Superior National Forest and cut down our first Christmas tree. We pulled the truck into a long-closed logging truck turnabout, and he put down the tailgate and showed me how to sharpen the axe, handed down from his dad. He threw the axe over his shoulder and started blazing a trail through the woods. The snow crunched beneath our boots and fell gently on the path before us as we scanned the treetops for a good Christmas tree. We finally found one that would fit into his low-ceiling apartment, but we only needed the top of the unsuspecting Balsam Fir. So with a quick glance around to check for Conservation Officers, he put the blade to the trunk a few times before our tree top came tumbling down. When we got back to the apartment, he used a rusty, dull hack saw to square off the bottom. I'm sure we both take for granted our current garage-full of new, sharp power tools; we used to exist with a hammer, a few screwdrivers, aforementioned dull axe and hack saw, a tape measure, and maybe a crescent wrench or two. We hardly had any ornaments, but we spent the night in his apartment putting up the few that we had, drinking cocoa, and watching a Christmas special on TV. I think it was that very night that I started feeling like Greg was my family.

So what have we decided to do this year? This past weekend, we put our tree on the deck. I know it seems rather silly putting a large, artificial tree outside, but it has turned out to be one of the most memorable "tree experiences" I've had. I spent most of the morning on Saturday melting down a large pot of authentic beef suet, adding peanut butter, oatmeal, and birdseed. The three of us then grabbed my mom and went to Severson Dells to collect empty milkweed pods. Ely napped while we hiked on what was perhaps the last warm, sunny day of fall. After Ely was asleep that night, we emptied the milkweed pods of their fluffy seeds, tied on twine hangers, and filled the milkweed pods with suet. Then we strung popcorn and cranberries on crochet thread and tied raffia bows to the branches. All day on Sunday, we watched and waited with anticipation for the first bird to visit our tree. We know we have very little to give each other for Christmas and even less to give to others, but it is of utmost importance that we give our chickadees, woodpeckers, juncos, blue jays, nuthatches, and finches a full belly on this holiday season!